Heart Attack

ARTICLES ABOUT HEART ATTACK BY DATE - PAGE 4

DIOCESE OF HARRISBURG officials say Bishop Joseph McFadden died of a heart attack last week after suddenly falling ill while attending a meeting of the Catholic Bishops of Pennsylvania. McFadden, 65, died Thursday morning at Holy Redeemer Hospital in Huntingdon Valley. Officials say McFadden awoke feeling ill and was taken to a hospital. McFadden was an Overbrook native and well-known locally as a longtime coach and teacher in Philadelphia's Catholic school system. Church officials say McFadden's funeral is scheduled for Wednesday following several days of services.

SAN FRANCISCO - One of the scariest parts of bypass surgery - having your heart stopped and going on a heart-lung machine while doctors fix your clogged arteries - does not cause mental decline, as many people have feared, and is safe even in the elderly, two landmark studies show. Bypass surgery is one of the most common operations in the world. There is debate about the best way to do it, and patients often are given a choice. Usually doctors stop the heart to make it easier to connect new blood vessels to detour around blocked ones.

HOW DO WE prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes in the next five years? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched the Million Hearts initiative in 2012 to answer this question. And it's as simple as the ABC'S: A spirin for risk reduction. B lood-pressure control. C holesterol-lowering. S moking cessation. Since February is Heart Month, this is a great time for Philadelphia to start working on its share of the goal - preventing 5,000 heart attacks and strokes among city residents by 2017.

BARBARA TAYLOR woke at 3 a.m. with chest pain and thought it might be indigestion. Then her jaw began to hurt, so she woke her husband, who took her to Doylestown Hospital. Taylor, 61, was having a heart attack, and she went to the hospital that is second-best in the country at keeping such patients alive, according to Medicare data from the federal government. The sooner a doctor performs angioplasty - using a tube called a catheter and a small balloon to open a blocked artery - the better.

TWO MEN - one 52, one 72 - entered Doylestown Hospital days apart this month, each suffering from chest pains. The younger man was found to have minor blockages in an artery and was told by Dr. Joseph McGarvey Jr., an interventional cardiologist, that he would need only medication and lifestyle changes. The older man had more serious blockages, and McGarvey swiftly scheduled him for bypass surgery. Both likely would have been treated differently just a few years ago. The younger man might have received an unnecessary stent, a tiny mesh tube to prop a vessel open.

FORMER ATHLETE-turned-restaurant manager Stephanie Varela, 29, attributed her sweating, shortness of breath and slight chest pains to the stress of hard work and rushing around. Neither she nor the paramedics would realize she was having a heart attack. It happened on a Saturday evening last September, the Philadelphia resident recalled recently. "I was on the phone trying to calm down an irate guest, and the minute I hung up, it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. I felt this stabbing pain in my shoulder that traveled down to my arm, elbow and finally to my fingers, which went numb.

Heart disease in women Does a heart attack really feel like an elephant on your chest? Not always, particularly if you are a woman. A study last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that women, especially those under 45, were less likely than men to have chest pain before a heart attack. Symptoms can be more subtle: nausea, fatigue, shortness of breath, and discomfort in the neck or back. Subtlety can be dangerous: For both sexes, the absence of the classic chest ache was linked to delayed hospital trips, slower care and a higher death rate.

AS WE celebrate Valentine's Day on Thursday, this is an opportune time to talk heart health with the ones we love. Just in case you need a little reminder, the No. 1 silent killer of all Americans, regardless of education, race or social-economic status, is coronary heart disease, the result of plaque blockages in the arteries that supply oxygen to the heart. Approximately every 30 seconds, an American is stricken with some kind of coronary event, according to the American Heart Association.

DEAR ABBY : I'm a 20-year-old college student with a great job, life ambitions and parents who love me. A few months ago I met a wonderful young man who is in the Army. We met on the Internet, communicated online for several weeks, then took the next step to meet in person. "Jack" is 10 years older than I am and has a son from a previous marriage. I did a background check and everything he told me is true. But I'm afraid to introduce him to my parents. They are leery about people meeting on the Internet.

Former Pennsylvania State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo was moved Wednesday from the Kentucky federal prison where he is serving a five-year sentence to a nearby hospital after doctors discovered three blockages during a heart checkup. Doctors have recommended that Fumo, 69, have heart bypass surgery to deal with one, in which an artery is 95 percent closed. Such a procedure would require him to be transferred to another federal prison near a hospital that is better equipped to perform the bypass, according to sources familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition that they not be identified.